Traverse City Record-Eagle

Antrim County

October 7, 2008

Efforts to block injection well denied

BY SHERI MCWHIRTER

ALBA -- Another blow came down the pipe for those opposed to a deep-injection disposal well proposed near Alba in Antrim County's Star Township.

A trio of judges on the Environmental Appeals Board of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week denied each objection raised by a group of local officials and activists who want to block an injection well meant to take leachate from a contamination site in Emmet County.

Petitioners have another chance to halt the project on the federal level before a subsidiary company of CMS Energy begins to drill, officials said.

"I'm not surprised ... I really didn't expect to get a fair and impartial hearing from the EPA," said John Richter, president of the nonprofit Friends of the Jordan River Watershed.

EAB judges are appointed by the EPA administrator, currently Stephen Johnson, who was appointed in 2005 by President George W. Bush.

The EAB panel -- Judges Edward Reich, Kathie Stein and Anna Wolgast -- ruled on each point against FJRW, Star Township and Antrim County, which jointly filed for a review of the EPA well permit. Petitioners asked in March for reconsideration on a number of points, including whether rock formations would hold the leachate and if evidentiary hearings should have been held, among other issues.

"They decided to defer to the technical expertise of the EPA on each of our challenges," said Gaylord attorney Susan Topp, who represents the petitioners.

Now her clients can file a motion with the EAB for reconsideration or an appeal in federal court, their last venue for relief.

Beeland Group LLC, an affiliate of CMS, will own the well created for leachate from the cleanup at Bay Harbor. That luxury residential community near Petoskey is where water seeps through underground kiln dust from an old cement factory and drains into Lake Michigan.

CMS estimates a $140 million cleanup price for the site.

Alba was chosen for a well site because it's near a major highway, is within appropriate zoning and has suitable geology, said Traverse City attorney Joseph Quandt, who represents the company.

"We're going to wait until the appeal time runs out on the federal level before we begin conducting drilling operations," Quandt said.

More permits are needed before leachate is pumped down the 2,150-foot hole.

Wastewater currently is treated at the site and trucked to a septage plant in Grand Traverse County, as well as to an injection well in Montmorency County.

Meanwhile, petitioners filed a lawsuit in Ingham County Circuit Court to block the project's state permit from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, but no hearings are scheduled. They filed suit in August after a state administrative law judge ruled they had no legal ground to challenge the DEQ permit.

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